Segacs's World I Know

Posts Tagged ‘iran’

Could it be that Mahmoud Ahmadinejad doesn’t quite believe the reports of Hezbollah claiming massive victory against Israel? He’s calling for a cease-fire, which one thinks would be counter-productive to his aim of letting Hezbollah wipe the Zionist entity off the map, no?

Someone must’ve told him that Hezbollah is getting its ass whopped.

This afternoon, while baking in the hot sun waiting to get into Parc Jean-Drapeau to see Bon Jovi, we received a panicked phone call from a friend whose entire family lives in Israel. “They’re attacking Haifa!” She calmed down a bit after speaking to her family and being assured that everyone was safe, but the fingernail-biting nervous tension didn’t exactly dissipate.

Nor, I fear, will it for a while.

To say that the matzav has heated up would be putting it mildly. Nobody was injured in the Haifa attack, but sadly, in the North, people weren’t so lucky; rocket attacks killed 2 people and injured at least 120. Meanwhile, Israel is attacking Beirut, targeting Hezbollah stronghold areas. Israel may be after Hezbollah, but it’s Lebanon and Israel that are now engaged in what can only be called war.

Even as things escalate with the Palestinians, Hezbollah, and Lebanon, it’s not ending there. Hezbollah’s primary backers, Syria and Iran, are dancing close to the flame as well. Iran is threatening to retaliate if Israel strikes Syria. Meanwhile, Israel claims it has intelligence that Hezbollah is trying to transfer the kidnapped Israeli soldiers to Iran, which, of course, Iran is denying. The chances that Syria and Iran could get dragged into this mess are looking high.

Nor can Israel count on the unqualified backing of the United States. Bush is giving his cautious support even while Condi Rice is urging “restraint” – an all-too-familiar ploy that will end with Israel being falsely painted as the aggressor even by its allies.

Tonight, my friend’s family is doing the only thing they can: bunking down, biting nails, and waiting. Millions of Israelis and their friends and loved ones around the globe are doing the same thing tonight, and, I fear, for far too long to come.

This isn’t a song and dance about how war is never the answer. I’m not urging anyone to sit down and sing kumbaya. Israel needs to defend itself, and everyone here knows I support her actions 100%. But I can’t help the fear, the trepidation, the sense of dread. Unlike Israel’s enemies, who go straight into every war joyously envisioning wiping the “Zionist entity” off the map, Israel has never and will never go into war happily. Every war fought by Israel has been because there was no other choice, and every decision made by the Israeli government primarily considers the safety and security of the Israeli people. All I can do is echo the statements made in editorials and on blogs around the world: Israel will win because there is no other choice.

But I can’t help being afraid.

Guy Caruso, the head of the U.S. EIA says that the world can’t afford to lose Iran’s oil if sanctions were imposed by the U.N.

Does that mean he feels that the world can afford a nuclear attack by Iran on its enemies. How would that affect the delicate world economy, Mr. Caruso?

The Wall Street Journal has an analysis of Iran’s provocation of the West with President Ahmadinejad’s rhetoric and – more importantly – nuclear ambition. And the conclusions it reaches are disconcerting, to say the least. Among the points it makes are that:

• Iran chose now to press the nuclear issue, figuring the U.S. can’t do much because of Iraq and the rest of the world couldn’t ever do much about it.
• The U.N. is powerless to stop Iran from going nuclear, and no Security Council sanctions – even if agreed upon by Russia and China – would be strong enough to get Iran to cave.
• U.S. Intelligence estimates that Iran is “very close” to mastering nuclear weapons technology, perhaps as close as a year.
• Unlike with Iraq, the world cannot count on Israel to stop Iran from going nuclear, as it has neither the range nor the capacity to prevent disastrous reprisals for an attack. It would likely come down to the U.S. to take military action, if it were to come to that, and at the moment this seems unlikely given the war in Iraq.

All in all, the analysis paints a very bleak picture in which Iran is marching steadily towards acquiring a nuclear bomb that it may have every intention of using to wipe Israel off the map.

If North Korea was the number-one threat to the world not too long ago, Iran has suddenly jumped up a few positions. However, I don’t believe we’re headed towards World War III tomorrow. There are still steps that can be taken, if the world recognizes the dangers in allowing Teheran to acquire nuclear technology. I only hope that these steps are taken, and that they are effective.

Something Damian Penny wrote the other day came back to me just now: “Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts.”

Damian was, of course, referring to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s Holocaust denial. However, I think the quote is a good one, and it popped into my head when I read about today’s ruling against teaching creationism in schools:

A federal judge on Tuesday banned the teaching of intelligent design as an alternative to evolution by Pennsylvania’s Dover Area School District, saying the practice violated the constitutional ban on teaching religion in public schools.

[ . . . ]

The school district was sued by a group of 11 parents who claimed teaching intelligent design was unconstitutional and unscientific and had no place in high school biology classrooms.

Before you jump down my throat, I’m in no way implying that Holocaust denial is comparable to creationism. What I am saying, however, is that there’s a clear difference between fact and invention – as in the case of Holocaust denial – which I think we all recognize fairly easily. What many people fail to recognize, however, is that we must also make a clear distinction between fact and belief.

Evolution is a scientific fact. Creationism (repackaged as “intelligent design” or whatever you rename it) is a belief. It is based on faith, not evidence, and cannot be proven for the simple reason that it cannot be disproven.

Today’s ruling banned the teaching of creationism because it violates the separation of church and state. I think the real reason it ought to be banned from science curricula is because it isn’t science. After all, there is no constitutional ban on teaching Holocaust denial in history class, and yet I’m sure we would all call for the dismissal of any teacher who tried, simply on the grounds that it’s wrong.

I have no objection to the teaching of creationist theory in a course about religion, humanities, or cultural studies. But high school biology teachers who teach creationism as scientific fact are muddling fact and belief. People are entitled to hold a belief, but when teaching science, they need to stick to facts.

And so, to restate Damian’s point, everyone is entitled to his own beliefs, but not his own facts.

After all his other spewings, Holocaust denials, and promises to murder millions of Jews, this seems almost droll in comparison:

Hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has banned Western music from Iran’s radio and TV stations, reviving one of the harshest cultural decrees from the early days of 1979 Islamic Revolution.

Songs such as George Michael’s “Careless Whisper,” Eric Clapton’s “Rush” and the Eagles’ “Hotel California” have regularly accompanied Iranian broadcasts, as do tunes by saxophonist Kenny G.

But the official IRAN Persian daily reported Monday that Ahmadinejad, as head of Iran’s Supreme Cultural Revolutionary Council, ordered the enactment of an October ruling by the council to ban Western music.

Cause after all, everyone knows that the saxophone stylings of Kenny G. contain hidden Zionist brainwashing propaganda.

Though we may scoff, cultural restrictions are key components of Ahmadinejad’s renewed fanatical war on the West and against any kind of freedom or reform for his people. One only wonders how far he can push before the forces for change in Iran push back.

European Union to Iran: stop denying the Holocaust, or we’ll denounce you.

I’m sure that threat has Ahmadinejad shaking in his boots.

The real question is whether Ahmadinejad is calculating and shrewd, or if he’s merely off his rocker.

Most of the time, rhetoric and provocation like this is done on purpose by despots looking to pick a fight for political gain, deflect attention away from their oppressive policies, or quell dissent at home, to name a few reasons. It’s entirely possible that Ahmadinejad is doing this in order to provoke the West to the point where someone takes action, and all hell breaks loose. Strange as this may sound, this would actually be the preferable of the two options. If Ahmadinejad is crazy like a fox, as opposed to merely crazy, then he probably wouldn’t actually unleash nuclear weapons on Israel – he’d just talk about it in order to stir up hatred. As I’ve said repeatedly, the very last thing that most of the dictators of the Arab world want is for Israel to disappear off the map. Because without Israel as the single unifying factor, they would simply attack each other (well, more so than they already do).

However, from what I’ve seen so far, it’s entirely possible that Ahmadinejad is just as crazy as he seems. His fanatical hatred of Israel might not be calculated, but real. In which case, the world has real cause to worry, because he might not care if Iran is wiped off the map as long as he can take Israel down with him. This is where the prospect of a nuclear Iran becomes very, very scary.

So which is it? Column A? Column B? A little of both? I don’t really think we have the option of waiting around to find out. But then, who’s left in the world to actually do anything to stop Ahmadinejad, before it’s too late?

Most despots who use virulent antisemitism as a political tool are really much saner than they seem. They know that redirecting people’s hatred against the common enemy of the Jews and Israel is shrewd: it saves them from revolting against the leadership, or from attacking one another. Somewhat.

But Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s spewings are ironically worrisome precisely because he seems to believe them. Unlike many Arab leaders who frequently call for Israel’s destruction when in truth it’s the last thing they actually want, Ahmadinejad actually seems crazy enough to put pragmatic or political concerns aside in favour of his virulent hatred.

Ahmadinejad knows that nobody in the world will stop him from going nuclear. He knows he can say the most hateful things possible and all the world will do is shake their heads and scold. And he knows that if he ever unleashes nuclear weapons at Israel, the Israelis would – and probably could – retaliate by wiping out Tehran.

The problem is, he may actually hate Israel so much that he doesn’t care.

If suicide bombers are so dangerous because they have no regard for their own life, then Ahmadinejad is the king of all suicide bombers; unpredictable and possibly likely to sacrifice his entire country to satisfy his blood lust. And it may well be too late to do anything to stop him from acquiring nuclear power.

Ahmadinejad has engaged the rest of the world in the ultimate game of chicken, and the rest of the world swerved first. The only question now is, can the Iranian forces for moderation and change respond quickly enough to rein him in? I’d like to think so, but it’s not looking good.

Nearly 100 people were killed today when an Iranian military plane crashed into a Tehran apartment building.

Initial indications are that the crash was due to engine trouble. But with Iran’s military, who really knows? I’m not about to start inventing conspiracy theories, but it does serve us well to remember that all news being released from Iran is heavily censored.

Iran has resumed its nuclear activity because it knows full well that the U.N. will always swerve first:

Iran has begun processing a new batch of uranium despite Western pressure on it to halt sensitive atomic work, possibly harming attempts to defuse a standoff over its nuclear aims, a diplomat said on Wednesday.

[ . . . ]

Western countries suspect Iran of seeking nuclear weapons under the cover of a civilian atomic program, which Tehran vehemently denies, saying it only wants to generate electricity.

Yeah, right. And hell is just a sauna.

Somehow I don’t think Iran is planning to wipe Israel off the map using mere electricity.